Narratives of Sorcery and Magic
From the Most Authentic Sources

Thomas Wright's interest in folklore and legend led to this two-volume 1851 account of sorcery and magic across Europe.

Thomas Wright (Author)

9781108044189, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 February 2012

366 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.47 kg

The English historian and antiquary Thomas Wright (1810–70) co-founded and joined a number of antiquarian and literary societies. He was greatly interested in Old English, Middle English and Anglo-Norman texts, and in the 1840s and 1850s he published widely within these areas. Gradually his focus shifted to the archaeology of Roman Britain and to Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Although much of Wright's research has been completely superseded, his work is still considered worth consulting, as he collected material not readily available elsewhere. This two-volume 1851 publication is testimony to Wright's interest in folklore, sorcery and legend. In Volume 1 the author accounts of sorcery across Europe, and he considers the legendary Dr Faustus as an archetypal magician who called 'the demon'. Wright also discusses the place of the occult in England during and after the Reformation, writing about magicians such as John Dee, and describing King James I's views on witchcraft.

1. Introduction
2. Story of the lady Alice Kyteler
3. Further political usage of the belief in sorcery. The Templars
4. Sorcery in France. The citizens of Arras
5. The lord of Mirebeau and Pierre d'Estaing the alchemist
6. The earlier medieval type of the sorcerer. Virgil the enchanter
7. The later medieval types of the magician. Friar Bacon and Dr Faustus
8. Sorcery in Germany in the fifteenth century. The Malleus Maleficarum
9. Witchcraft in Scotland in the sixteenth century
10. King James and the witches of Lothian
11. Magic in England during the age of the Reformation
12. The English magicians. Dr Dee and his followers
13. The witches of Warboys
14. The poetry of witchcraft
15. Witchcraft in France in the sixteenth century
16. Pierre de Lancre and the witches of Labourd
17. Magic in Spain. The auto-da-fé of Logrono.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]